She kept it in a box. It was a plain, cardboard box. Not ornamental, but sordid enough to serve its purpose — to keep its content safe. She kept it tightly closed.
She always checked that the lid was secured and in place. She fashioned various ways to prevent the lid from carelessly lifting up. She would tie a blue string around the four sides of the box and knot it up with a pretty ribbon.
But the prettiness of it attracted too many people’s attention. ‘Is that a gift?’, ‘Who is it for?’ those questions annoyed her. It was no one else’s gift, but hers alone.
She carried the box wherever she went. She carried it while driving on her way to work, occupying the empty left passenger seat. She carried it to lunch, placed on the table where she could look at it and have quite conversations.
She took it out for movies, where the box would sit on her lap and together they would laugh and weep at other people’s happiness and misfortunes. Many people thought she was a bit crazy.
Nobody quite knew what was inside that box. She would not let anyone come close to it, touch it or even dare to open it. The people in the neighbourhood started sweepstakes to guess what was inside. Was it a guarded lottery ticket? A gold coin? A dead rat? Her belly button?
Once, a group of kids carefully planned to take the box. They diverted her attention by distracting her with shouts and screams, all of them swirling around her, dancing, jumping, mocking. She was frightened. They succeeded.
But as soon as she realised that they have taken the box, she collapsed on the ground as though life was sucked away from her. She just lied there, unable to move her limbs and stretching her fingers towards the boys holding the box.
She could not speak, but her eyes filled themselves with hot tears that run down her cheeks. The boys were frightened at what they saw and were afraid of what they could have done, so the older one of them grabbed the box and returned it to her. He took her flickering fingers, opened her palm and placed the tiny box on her hand. She smiled.